I see this on slashdot but not apnews or arcamax. For the latter two, does it still happen in Troubleshoot Mode?

Zeroknight: Thanks for responding! Yes, the behavior continues in safe mode, at least on Arcamax. Right now, my workaround is to first, set my preferences to "When you open a link, image or media in a new tab, switch to it immediately". Then middle-clicking on an entry opens it in a new tab. When I'm finished, I can ctrl-W to shut down that tab, and return to the previous one. But to be clear, left-clicking on an entry, and then returning puts me back at the top of the page when I return.

Returning to the original position relies on the disk cache, so if the page instructs the browser not to cache the page then returning to the previous position might not work.

Does it still happen in a new profile? An easy way to test a new profile is to install Developer Edition and see if it happens there or refresh your existing profile. Make sure you stay signed out of your sync account when testing.